DECK THE HALLS WITH ANOTHER DEMOCRAT

A pocketful of Kent County voters
interrupted their holiday planning long enough Saturday
to gift-wrap a special election for the Democrats in the
state House of Representatives.

William J. Carson Jr. kept a seat
Democratic with an easy win against Republican Christine
Malec in the 28th Representative District, located in
the northeastern corner of the county with its heart in
Smyrna, the home base for both candidates.

Carson outpolled Malec 67 percent
to 33 percent for the right to take over from
Bruce C. Ennis, a fellow Democrat who moved from the
House to the Senate by winning a special election last
month to replace James T. Vaughn Sr., the late
Democratic state senator.

Ennis was alongside Carson as the
Democrats celebrated at a makeshift headquarters in
Smyrna on Union Street and got a laugh for handing over
one of Malec's campaign signs as a souvenir.

Carson, a retired state
transportation employee now working for Middletown,
singled out Ennis and Vaughn especially as he thanked a
crowd of supporters. "It was a wonderful group effort,"
he said. "One of my best friends in the world is not
here, but I know he's looking down on us -- Jim Vaughn.
He's got a beer in his hand, and he's smiling."

The outcome was never really in
doubt. Carson banked on a considerable registration
advantage for the Democrats, almost 2,500 voters more
than the Republicans, as well as prominent family and
community ties that carried him at a time when people
were too distracted by the holiday season to pay much
attention to learning about candidates in an isolated
special election.

Carson does not represent a
changing of the guard but a keeping of the guard by a
constituency known for loyalty to its lawmakers. Vaughn
served for 27 years, re-elected last year even though he
was too sick from throat cancer and pneumonia ever to
return to Legislative Hall in Dover, and Ennis occupied
his House seat for 25 years.

Carson is Vaughn’s godson, and his
wife Betty is the adopted daughter of Ennis’ brother.
Carson shared a background in the Smyrna fire company
with Ennis and the Smyrna-Clayton Little League with
Vaughn. He was well-known in the community by his
childhood nickname of "Lumpy."

Malec, a member of the Smyrna
school board, is a partner in her family business of
Town & Country Power Equipment, which served as her
headquarters for the day. She told her supporters the
campaign was a positive experience, even though it did
not work out.

The Democrats were expected to win
ever since Ennis rolled up huge numbers in his old
district while taking the Senate seat. The Democrats
cheerily took advantage of Ennis’ strength by fashioning
campaign literature for Carson with pictures of the two of them
shaking hands.

The Republicans signaled doubts
about their own chances when their pre-election finance
report showed they had raised only $10,000 with eight
days to go, a sum that amounted to financial starvation.
Earlier this year, a favored Republican candidate raked
in $68,000 in a similar time frame for a House special
election in Brandywine Hundred -- and lost. Carson took in $24,000
by the 8-day report, although his full treasury by the
time of the election was said to be about $42,000.

The disparity was on display at one
of the polling places at Smyrna High School. State Rep.
John J. Viola, a Democrat promoting Carson, was armed
with glossy campaign fliers to give to the voters, while
state Rep. Nick T. Manolakos, a Republican stumping for
Malec, could offer only black and white business cards
saying, “Please vote Christine Malec.”

By mid-afternoon, the Democrats
were ahead of the Republicans in getting their voters to
the polls with the help of a massive operation using 140
labor union members – even more than the party had
available for Ennis. The Republicans were doing what
they could, but they were outgunned.

“The people we’ve identified as her
supporters are getting out,” said John R. Matlusky, the
Republican national committeeman.

The Democrats were sounding as
relaxed as a party could be amid the jumble of a special
election. “We’re not taking anything for granted. We’re
still trying to get the vote out. We just sent out a
second shift of volunteers, and we’re going to push
until the end,” said Erik J. Schramm, the campaign
manager for Carson.

The turnout was thin -- about 18
percent in a district with nearly 12,800 voters. Carson
won 12 out of 14 election districts, losing one where
the voting was so minuscule that only three people went
to the polls and broke 2-1 for Malec.

The voting brought to an end a
string of special elections that exhausted both the
Democrats and the Republicans in what was supposed to be
an off-year and also darkened the aura of Republican
superiority in them. The Republicans earned that
reputation by winning special elections that were
supposed to go to the Democrats.

This year the Republicans kept a
Levy Court seat in Kent County and a House seat in
Sussex County, and the Democrats retained the seats
vacated by Vaughn and Ennis, but the race that altered
the political balance was the one for the representative
district in Brandywine Hundred. The Democrats snatched
it away in an upset.

It left the Democrats with a House
seat they never expected to have and put them in an
improved position for one of their major goals in 2008 –
overturning the Republican majority, now at a margin of
22-19, after more than two decades out of power.

No one seemed happier about those
circumstances than state Rep. Robert F. Gilligan, the
Democratic minority leader who would be in line to
become speaker in a turnover.

"When the Democratic Party is
united like we were today or like we were a month ago in
the Senate race, it's difficult for the Republicans to
win," Gilligan said. "If we stay united for the next
year, we hope to have a very successful election in
2008."